


the red flowering day

by Mertiya



Series: Center-verse [1]
Category: Everyday Abnormal (Webcomic), Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion... - Sandia Labs
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Dreamsharing, F/F, Fairy Tale Style, Gift Fic, Myths and legends about the Manhattan project, Wagnerian themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 06:26:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17699324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: All Asuka wants is to find the woman of her dreams.





	the red flowering day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zomburai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zomburai/gifts).



> happy valentine's, babe <3
> 
> yeah i'm early
> 
> yeah i said i was going to be late
> 
> here we are

The desert night is cool and clear, shining with bright stars. At the horizon, Asuka can see the brilliant light of Kimah, where Rhine first pointed it out to her. It’s shining as bright as the sun, but it’s red, a deep crimson hue that soaks across the pale desert sand. Ah. She’s dreaming.

            The cool slushy lake forms about her knees even as she thinks that, and there’s a figure standing at the other end, backlit by the glow of the vast red dahlia painted across the sky. Asuka waves. The figure waves back and then she hurries through the water towards her.

            She’s wearing the same tight black form-fitting suit as always, her blond hair matted to her head with water-damp, and she smiles at Asuka. Asuka’s been dreaming about her for five years, now, ever since she reached the Center.

            When she was a child, she dreamed of better things than life as a guardian of a remote beach where the butterflies crawled and could not fly on their distorted wings, where if you got too close to the shimmering blue water, the oni’s poison got into your blood and your hair fell out and it burned you from the inside out. The beach was precious to the man who had raised her; it was not precious to her, so when he died, she left.

            She crossed an ocean in a tiny rickety boat with two other explorers and landed on golden sands beneath a pale, open sky. The land sprawled away, huge and strange and yet not so strange all at once, and she walked and walked, not knowing where she was going or what she was looking for. She crossed a mile-wide swathe of smoldering ash that she learned later was the remains of the Grifwigo, and arrived at last, after months wandering through a vast pink desert, at the Center, where she was welcomed by the Agency of the Banded Eye.

            The Agency guarded the demon-touched places of Nabiaha, protecting them from people and people from them. Asuka wasn’t sure if she’d wanted to stay, but she liked Roland and Uche—and then the dreams started.

            At first, she didn’t know what to make of them. She dreamed of darkness, and a woman’s voice calling her in a language she didn’t know. Gradually, though, she began to see the woman, and more than that, the two of them began to wander through a landscape of memories together. One night, they might be wandering on the safe part of the beach where Asuka had grown up, collecting seashells; the next might see them walking down a crowded city street in the rain, with buildings so unlike anything Asuka had ever seen that she stared and couldn’t stop staring. They couldn’t speak, but they learned to communicate with gestures; they built a whole language of signs in their dreams. The woman calls her Flying Bird, and in turn Asuka calls her Night Flower.

            Tonight is different. This isn’t a place Asuka recognizes from her own memories, and it’s wholly unlike anything she’s ever seen in Night Flower’s.

            _Where are we?_ she asks as the woman approaches.

            _Don’t know. Water?_ Night Flower looks around, her eyes crinkling in confusion. _Not yours?_

            It’s not a memory, but the flat-topped mesas rising tan and black and pink aren’t so different from where she lives now. _Maybe?_ Asuka replies doubtfully.

            _Looks like new—_ Night Flower pauses and frowns. _South place. Not where I lived. I visit sometimes._

 _The waking place,_ Asuka signs hesitantly. _I wake here?_

            Night Flower still looks puzzled. She reaches out to take Asuka’s hand in hers, her other hand fluttering as if she’s about to say something, but before she can, the ground rumbles beneath their feet. Streaks of blood-red light unfurl across the sky, and the water drains from around them. Night Flower squeaks in concern, and Asuka reaches towards her, but only their fingertips brush across one another before an inferno roars up between them, and Asuka is falling upwards into the blood-red sky. She struggles; she tries to cry out, but she has lost any sense of her own voice. There is just Night Flower falling beneath her, towards the ground and not the sky, towards an oblong black coffin. She lands inside and the lid slams down. There is a ring of crackling, eager flames encircling it, licking greedily at the black earth beneath, a mess of tumbled rock and broken metal.

            Something is screaming in her ear, and the flames aren’t flames anymore, but strobing red-yellow emergency lights. Swearing, she tumbles herself out of bed. Someone is saying her name into her ear, and it takes her a long minute to realize it’s Uche, talking rapidly into her energetic jewelry. “There’s been an attack near the Trine. An undiscovered site with numerous artifacts was blown wide open. Our first responders got there, but there’s a fire, and we need all hands there as quickly as possible.”

            “Right.” She reaches for her blade, securing it on her back, and pulls her mind together enough to stumble out to the front of the compound, where a jeep is already waiting. She boards it to find that Russell is driving and Uche is in the front seat, fiddling with the feeds from a dozen jewelries, including her own.

            “Good morning! Exciting day, isn’t it?” says the person in the other passenger seat, and Asuka gives their resident ancient technologist a faintly surprised look. Vaska isn’t a morning person at the best of times, and this must be the worst possible time to call “morning.”

            “Don’t mind them,” Russell says tersely from the front seat. “They haven’t slept in two days.” Ah. That does explain it. Asuka buckles her seatbelt and the jeep roars off into the night.

            She naps, trying to get as much rest as possible. The Trine is at least three hours away, and there’s no point arriving more exhausted than she has to be. She doesn’t dream, though, just slips foggily from one position to another, from one starscape to the next, with Vaska’s voice murmuring excitedly in the background.

            They reach the Trine as dawn is breaking. There are thick plumes of smoke smearing across the sky, obscuring the crimson of the rising sun. One of the Agents who usually works at the Trine runs up to them, Carlos, Asuka thinks. Rhine’s boyfriend. “We’ve contained the fires,” he says. “Bandits have been repelled, but they managed to set off some explosives, and we’re trying to figure out how much of the site might have been damaged. Something might’ve been released, we don’t know.”

            “Right,” says Uche. “Asuka, go with Carlos and check out the site. Take an energetic detector with you.”

            She nods and slips out of the jeep, keeping one hand on her sword, the other on the detector that Vaska pushes into her hand. “Don’t worry,” she says to Uche, giving him a smile she’s not sure she feels. “We’ll handle this.”

~

            It’s not as bad as she feared. Working through the morning reveals a number of artifacts uncovered by the fires and the explosions, but her detector stays resolutely silent. It’s a tiring day, but she’s had tiring days before. Carlos is a pleasant companion to work with: quiet and efficient. They’ve reached a pleasant rhythm when Asuka wipes the sweat from her forehead and clambers over a tall pile of rubble to see something she recognizes.

            There’s no ring of fire, but the circle of dark churned earth and the way the landscape rises around it is unmistakable. “Asuka,” Uche says into her ear. “That doesn’t look stable. You should wait.”

            She can’t help the step forward that she takes, and her detector begins emitting a warning sound. Not the clicking it makes when it senses demonic energy, but—she glances down at it. The heat. There’s so much heat emanating from the black stones. It’s not rated for these conditions.

            Vaska’s voice whistles faintly in the background of the audio transmission. “That’s gotta be fuckin’ hot.”

            “Dr. Andropov, please,” Uche sighs.

            “Ah, look at the signature, it’s just like—” something incomprehensible. “Bet there’s a woman in there.”

            Russell chuckles grimly. “Bet there’s nothing.”

            “I’ll put a hundred bucks on woman.”

            “You’ll _what_?”

“Both of you, shut up.”

            Asuka looks into the middle of the rough-churned ground. It’s distorted because of the heat haze rising above the dark stones, but she is almost certain she can see a dark oblong, about the same length as a bed.

            “Agent, stand down,” Uche says into her ear. “It’s not safe. There may be no signs of demonic energy now, but if you disturb the site, there’s no telling what you could unleash, and with your detector out of commission, you won’t even know.”

            A touch of tawny movement catches her eye, and she squints through the distortion to see the lashing tail and tufted ears of a cat. It’s licking a paw quietly.

            “I’ll know,” she says, quietly.

            “ _Asuka, don’t_ —” She reaches up and mutes the energetic jewelry with a single careless motion. It’s simple. Either she’ll make it across, or she won’t. And in all likelihood the energy will not kill her fast enough to stop her from reaching the woman in the box. So she puts one foot in front of the other and moves forward.

            The ground crunches and shifts beneath her feet, but the cat becomes clearer as she approaches: still seated, tail twitching a bit, and beneath it, a box like a long coffin. The heat is intense, almost unbearable. Beneath the hot desert sun, the black metal radiates like an open flame. Sweat breaks out on her forehead, and, halfway across, she strips off her shirt and drops it. It sizzles gently. It’s like crossing a ring of fire.

            With relief, she stumbles into the middle, almost going down onto her knees. There’s pale sand beneath her now, and the heat has diminished noticeably. The cat leaps up and runs lightly across the ring on the opposite side from the way she entered. As it crosses, its pale fur flickers a ghostly green, and Asuka makes a mental note not to exit in that direction.

            The hum of energy reaches her ears as she bends over the box. Despite its exposure in the massive seismic event of the day before, it’s still somehow energetically powered, perhaps from beneath. She presses a hand to it, and, with a hissing noise, the top rises. White vapor pours from both sides. A calm voice says something, but she doesn’t recognize the language. The top shudders sideways with a clunky protest.

            Inside, pillowed in some kind of clear gel, lies the woman from her dreams. Her forehead is a little wrinkled, her blond hair spread out in a floating halo about her face. A moment later, the gel boils into steam in the hot desert air, and she has to catch the woman quickly to stop her from falling the six inches to the empty bottom of the box. Eyes as blue as a demon’s kiss flutter open and stare into Asuka’s, and the woman smiles.

            The words her lips form are as incomprehensible as the words the box spoke, but after the dreams, Asuka knows this woman as well as anyone, and it doesn’t take words to understand when she reaches out and presses a thin hand to Asuka’s cheek. Trembling, Asuka kneels at the side of the box, and between the two of them they close the distance. Her dream woman’s lips taste sharp and clean, but they feel soft, like flower petals. She puts her arms around Asuka’s shoulders and holds her close.

            Ten miles away, staring at the fuzzy image from Asuka’s energetic jewelry, Vaska puts out a hand and gestures meaningfully at Russell, while Uche throws his hands in the air. “Pay up,” they say cheerfully.

            “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Russell groans. “How the _fuck_ —”

            “Mythological inevitability.”

            “What on the who now?”

            Vaska pokes Russell’s chest with an enthusiastic finger. “It’s one of those very, very old stories. One of the ones where the Wizard of Open Doors is a villain. He forges a ring from the heart of a devil, and when it’s taken from him he places a curse on it. So then the one-eyed Leader of Truth gets hold of it or something and destroys the world.”

            “Uh…”

            “Okay, that’s not the relevant bit. The relevant bit’s in the middle, when the Leader of Truth’s daughter is cursed to sleep in the middle of the ring of fire until she’s awakened by a hero without fear.”

            “Okay, smart guy, what’s going to happen next?”

            Vaska grins sharply. “Fifty-fifty. Either they live happily ever after or everyone dies in a fire.”

            Uche groans.

            “What?” Vaska asks innocently. “I like those odds.”

_Fin._

 

_And if, some summer evening, you have given to one_

_Only, laughter and sunlight and propagation_

_And the red flowering day,_

_The other angels may_

_Be slow to grant forgiveness and pardon_.

– J.R. Oppenheimer


End file.
